Cassettes into which banknotes are fed for storage purposes are becoming more and more usual.
One type of banknote storage cassette is constructed to prevent unauthorized removal of the banknotes therefrom and is provided with means operative to destroy the banknotes in the cassette by coating the banknotes with a dye, or rendering the banknotes useless in some other way, should an attempt be made to forceably feed-out the banknotes or to destroy the cassette.
Other types of cassette are also known to the art. Irrespective of the type of cassette used, or whether other forms of banknote-storage devices are used, one problem common to all such devices resides in the inability of feeding large quantities of banknotes into the banknote-storage device and stacking the banknotes therein in a smooth and trouble-free fashion.
Interruptions in the infeed of banknotes into devices of this nature are inter alia, primarily due to jamming of a banknote so as to block the infeed path of the next banknote in line.
Such crinkling of a banknote, i.e. folding and pleating of a banknote as it is fed in to the banknote storage device, is normally caused because the banknote to be fed into the device, or the uppermost banknote of a stack of banknotes, has along one edge thereof a tear which extends parallel with the transport direction or the leading edge of the banknote. This crinkling of a banknote is more liable to occur when the tear is located close to the end of the first banknote to be fed into the device.
In the case of known banknote infeed mechanisms, a banknote is normally introduced into a banknote magazine between a pair of rubber drive-rollers. Such mechanisms operate by inserting the uppermost or lowermost banknote of a stack of banknotes into the magazine. This known technique is unsatisfactory, when the banknotes concerned are worn, and particularly when the banknotes are damaged. When one or more banknotes crinkle in the afore-defined fashion, the cassette cannot be used again until it has been emptied of banknotes. This magazine-emptying procedure requires the use of special devices, however, such as electronic devices, in order to enable the cassette to be opened without destroying the banknotes. These devices are not normally kept in the place or premises where the cassette is used, but in some other place.